A three hundred person panel of grown women who refer to themselves as "Smart Girls" have chosen Michele Bachmann for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination in a recent straw poll.

While their 300 votes might not sound like much, the caucus's endorsement of Bachmann's candidacy is significant, as Smart Girl Politics represents a rapidly growing body of conservative women. The Daily Beast reports,

The group grew out of a blog by the same name by stay-at-home mom Stacy Mott, who began blogging about her political frustrations in June 2008 when her husband told her he was tired of hearing her complaints. After John McCain lost the election, she asked her readers if they would be interested in forming a new conservative group, and within two weeks, she had 60 responses. By February '09, Smart Girl Politics (SGP) had 2,000 members, and now, not quite three years later, claims 55,000 nationwide.

Women have outvoted men in every election since 1980, and while hand wringing over "the female vote" seems like it's trotted out during every election cycle, during the 2012 primary season, the voice of opinion of conservative women will again be key in shaping what the Republican ballot looks like come November.

Meanwhile, in the land of Smart Girls, convention attendees discussed political activism in addition to endorsing a Republican candidate for 2012. They also reflected on how to further involve conservative women at all points in the political process.

The buzzwords for smart girls are "engage ... empower ... educate," and their mission is to get more conservative women blogging, commenting, and running for political office.

You heard it here first. Smart Girls like women who deny evolution and think that homosexuality is an illness. You know, things without any scientific evidence, or things that run contrary to widely accepted fact. Apparently, if you're truly smart, you don't need no stinkin' science.

I have always found conservative befuddlement over a lack of female candidates hilarious. At the root of American social conservatism is a drive to return to the imagined white patriarchal ideal of a 1950's sitcom, where men wear hats and carry matching briefcases to work at the factory and women mince around in pearls pushing a vacuum cleaner through their living room and then twirl together a pot roast and disgusting Jello dessert in their Dream Kitchen From The Future. Conservatives preach that the ideal expression of femininity is to stay home and have as many babies as your husband wants and then they act surprised when women who consider themselves conservatives actually do this. Why aren't there more conservative female candidates? Because you fucking told them to stay home, that's why.

Perhaps we should be glad that the "smart girls" of conservatism are hoping to educate other women, as nothing primes someone to join the ranks of the liberals like education. In the meantime, the buzzwords for people like Michele Bachmann and Smart Girl Politics icon Phylis Schlafly, who seek power for themselves but then work to take away the rights of other women, are "self-serving hypocrites."